Blackness Takes Over & Blackness Awaits (82 page)

I try to make my voice loud enough for Nicky to hear yet seem like I’m doing nothing untoward. I have heard not a sound from the bathroom and based on Grady’s body language he thinks I’m alone.

“Your mother should have aborted you when I told her to,” he fumes. That catches my attention.

“She wasn’t a very good listener as I recall,” I reply with no hint of the questions that rumble in my head.

“She was quite helpful if providing me the information necessary to get rid of John Murphy. If only she hadn’t been fooled into believing you were dead.”

My mind is spinning to catch up with what he’s saying. He thinks I know what he’s talking about so I have to play along while I simultaneously analyze.

“She was stupid,” I say in a joking manner. This throws him. We’re playing a game and I have the advantage. While he stumbles, I think.

My father and I weren’t caught in a turf war crossfire. Grady ordered a hit, no doubt Mancini had a hand in that. A hit made possible by information my mother offered. Did I ever see her again after the shooting? My mind is trying to pull the memories when he speaks again.

“She was easy enough to deal with later,” he says trying to goad me again.

“I don’t doubt that.” My mother is dead. I feel nothing. She was at the hospital…fuck I can’t remember seeing her face. Didn’t she put me in a car with that driver to send me to Uncle Mick?

“This is becoming a trip down memory lane that I’d prefer not visit. I’m here to discuss your testimony at my trial next month.” I meet his gaze with an icy stare that informs him I’m not doing shit for him.

“You can posture all you’d like, but you and I know you’ll let no harm come to that
boyfriend
of yours or his child. Really Shannon with your pedigree you should be in a relationship with someone worthy of your breeding.” What the fuck does that mean?

“I wasn’t aware of any such pedigree, Governor.”

He cocks his head at me and a wry smile covers his lips.

“I figured you’d see the resemblance now that I’m here in front of you.”

NO! No fucking way! I’m not falling for this. Fuck him for trying to make me.

“The only thing I see in front of me is prey.”

“So you’d kill the only remaining family you have?”

“Yes,” I answer quickly. He wasn’t expecting that. My soft spot for family is not dictated by blood. He’s misread me. I reach up to thumb my pedant realizing it’s at home. Kel must have taken it off me when I was sick. That piece of jewelry has become my connection to him in his absence. I imagine the feel of the gold and diamonds beneath my fingers and ready my mind for a battle.

“That’s unfortunate. I’ve managed to put together quite a case for you and I. See you were hidden away from me by your uncle for so many years that when you returned to Chicago to go to college and I finally found you, you couldn’t wait to reconnect. As our relationship grew so did your need to please me and it overwhelmed your sense of morals. It took a great deal of time and money but I found a brilliant forger that did an amazing job of producing your signature on multiple documents showing your willing cooperation in racketeering, money laundering, and campaign funding fraud.”

I don’t react. I sit and wait for him to finish. I only hope that Nicky is in the bathroom recording this entire conversation. It’s silent on his side of the door so I know he’s listening.

“You’ll take the stand at my trial and admit to your hand in my demise. You’ll do this so your child and boyfriend can keep their lives.”

“No. I won’t. You won’t do anything to my son or my boyfriend. You will release anyone that you actually have now or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes in the next thirty seconds. I’m done playing your games.”

I move quickly retrieving the gun from beneath the covers and aim between his eyes. I begin to count internally as his face pales. His thumb moves across the screen of his phone and without looking he presses a key.

“I’ve just texted the men that have them and told them to kill one. Now you’re down to your last chance,” his voice shakes.

“I’m at twenty on your count down.” I don’t react to what he says. I don’t believe him. I can’t believe him.

“I’ve told them to torture and maim them if I don’t make contact every thirty minutes. If you kill me you seal their fates.”

“The only fate sealed in this room is yours. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three…”

Kellerman

I’m running through the corridors as fast as my legs will carry me desperate to get to Kid. Kav is in step with me as we pant and heave. Kav is screaming for people to get out of the way and I’m brandishing a gun. People are moving.

We get onto the maternity unit and people are screaming and ducking away from us. I’m three doors from Kid’s room when I hear the gunshot.

“NOOOOOO!” I roar and tear into the room. I rip back the privacy curtain to see Kid is sitting in her bed, gun aimed at a man on the floor. Cooper is standing in the doorway of the bathroom gun drawn aiming at the same man.

“Kiddo?” I call.

“I’m fine, Kel.” She turns her gaze to meet mine and I see fury stream through her face. “Where’s the baby?!” she screams leaping from the bed charging at me. I engulf her in my arms and crush her to my chest, but she fights against me just as hard.

“He’s fine. Kieran has him,” I explain and her fight stops. She tips her head up at me in confusion.

“I don’t know why he’s here, but he was the only one qualified to take the baby so I could get to you.”

“Kavy, go get my son,” her tone has an air of threat and pain. Kav hesitates for half a second before running back down the corridor.

“Drop your weapons!” a man yells from down the corridor in the opposite direction of Kav. Kid and I slowly turn laying our guns on the ground as multiple police officers rush toward us guns drawn. Cooper jumps in front of us before the cops can take us down.

“I’m agent Nick Cooper.” Cooper flashes a badge. “Miss Kelly is in my protective custody. There was an intruder in her room that I have shot. He requires medical assistance. Neither Mister Kellerman nor Miss Kelly have committed any crimes. Please lower your weapons,” he commands in a professional yet authoritative tone.

“I’m sorry agent Cooper but this guy ran through the hospital with a gun,” the officer says approaching me with an ominous look on his face.

“While I understand that’s against hospital policy, he’s broken no laws by carrying a gun unconcealed with a valid permit. His family was in danger and he was trying to protect them. I think that warrants his behavior. I believe the news outlets would love a story about it.” Cooper has won based on the look on the cop’s face.

“I’m really sorry for scaring people, officer. My son was almost kidnapped while I was held at gunpoint in the parking lot. Once I was able to get away I knew my girlfriend’s life was in danger. I acted on instinct.” I shrug trying to play off the fact that I was running through this hospital preparing to commit murder.

Kid goes completely rigid at my explanation. Not the best way to learn about what just happened to us. Kav comes running in with the baby cradled to his massive chest. Sweat is pouring into his eyes when he reaches us. Kid rips Johnny from his arms and starts checking every inch of him for an injury. Some nurses ran around us at some point when Cooper was talking to the cops to work on whoever is bleeding all over the floor.

O’Sullivan, Kieran and Cal run up two seconds behind Kav. When their eyes land on Kid they all relax.

“Gentlemen I believe you’re needed outside at a crime scene. Federal agents are en route to clear this scene. Thank you for your assistance.” They’ve been dismissed. Cooper changes his gaze to a nurse hovering behind our bunch. “We need a new room immediately for Miss Kelly.” She nods and runs down the hall.

Kid is still feverishly looking over the baby who’s starting to fuss at being jacked with.

“Kiddo, he’s fine.” I try to convince her but she ignores me. The cops leave the area and the onlookers start to return to their original locales. Kid won’t stop messing with the baby so I pick her up in my arms and hold her to my chest and she does the same with the baby.

Cooper nods down the hall and I see the nurse waiting for us outside a new room. I walk down the corridor cradling all the life that belongs to me in this world to my chest. I feel peace roll through my body knowing they’re all safe. Safe in my arms.

Kavanagh

Holy. Fucking. Shit! That was absolute insanity. I flop into a chair in Kid’s new room and catch my breath. I’m not doing cardio for a week! Cal, O’Sullivan, Kieran and Cooper drop into chairs around the room while Kellerman crawls in bed with his family. I’m tempted to crawl in with them, but I stay in my chair at the bedside.

“Someone tell me what the fuck happened. Where’s Thomas?” Kid demands quietly as she shoves her boob in Johnny’s mouth. I don’t think he needs to eat, Kid needs him there.

“Surgery. Took a shot to the lung,” Kieran replies for the group.

“What’re you doin’ here?” she asks in a nicer tone than her words convey.

“Followed Mancini’s guys here. They weren’t too careful. All the smart ones are still locked up. Grady had to bring dummies along,” Kieran explains scrubbing his hands over his face.

“That was Grady in your room?” I ask concerned that Kid just killed a state governor.

“Yeah. He’s bat shit fuckin’ crazy too,” Kid scoffs. Kellerman is sitting behind her in the bed one arm wrapped possessively around her shoulders the other around Johnny. If he could drag them into a cave he would right now. I’d take the cave next door.

“Did you kill him?” I ask tentatively getting ready to call my pop. He could get her out of it.

“Nicky shot him before I had the chance.”

“Easier clean up for me than her,” Cooper explains typing away on his phone. He’s working now. He’s sitting there in fucking flip flops, shorts and a polo. You’d never know he was a federal agent that just shot a state governor.

“Did he have a weapon?” O’Sullivan asks pulling his blood covered shirt over his head. The tat across the back of his shoulders stretches as his arms move and my eye is drawn to our family clover dotting the
i
of his last name. A little bit of Kid in all of us.

“Just his fuckin’ mouth,” Cooper answers gruffly.

“Huh?” Cal pipes in. He took a good hit to the head when the SUV crashed that Kieran took the tires out on. He refused medical attention to get up here to Kid, but I’m worried he may have a concussion.

“It’s a long damn story, but I have it here on my phone. Have a listen to this shit,” Cooper says turning up the volume as he plays the conversation Kid had with Grady.

When the recording finishes I feel sick to my stomach. I can’t believe this motherfucker. I look to Kid’s face and it’s a stone veil of no emotion.

“I can’t remember if my mother put me in the car with the driver at the airport. I always thought she did but now I can’t fuckin’ remember.” Kid’s tired, sick, pregnant, freaked and so many other things I’m not surprised she can’t remember.

“I don’t think she did. My nurse told me about my father bein’ dead not my mother. I don’t remember her ever visiting me. I think it was the nurse that put me in the car. I think Uncle Mick faked my death to keep me safe. Do you think he coulda done that Nicky?” she rambles trying to track everything down.

“He had the skills and the resources. I don’t see why not,” Cooper says confidently.

“She hated me that much. She hated me so much that she told them how to kill us. Where we’d be. Why did she hate me?” There’s choked emotion in Kid’s voice as she gazes down at Johnny. He’s no longer nursing just sleeping using her boob as a pillow. Good man.

“Because she was a fuckin’ idiot. An evil piece of shit that got what she deserved. You’re a damn gift!” Kellerman growls into her neck. I’m going to look at caves when we get out of here. He’d look good in a cave with a loin cloth. So would I.

“Kid,” Cal calls to her quietly. “You remember when you told us about your dad that day at the breakfast table?” She nods. “I told you about my mom dyin’ that day and you crawled in my lap and made me feel good for the first time in a way I’d never felt. Your mother couldn’t stand you because you burned so bright you out shined her. Even when she tried to remove you from this world you fought your way through and burned brighter than before. Don’t let her touch that light now. You burn brighter today than you did yesterday knowin’ that you bring light to everything you touch. Even a fucked up soul like mine.”